Torsten Frings supports FC PlayFair! and demands more grounding
With its „Situations Analysis Professional Football 2017“ the „FC PlayFair! Association for Integrity in Professional Football e.V.“ (www.fcplayfair.org) pointed out in May 2017 a development which reached a preliminary negative climax with the appearance of the German men’s national football team, now known as „The Team“, at the World Cup in Russia. More and more hashtags, national players isolated from the fans or bad crisis management of the DFB and „The Team“ are becoming more and more alienated from the fans, their base. This alienation is now being counteracted by 79-time national player Torsten Frings.
The 41-year-old man from Würselen has contested several world and European championships for the DFB, he ist German champion and multiple cup winner and avowed supporter of the German Football Ambassador. To this day, he is regarded as a prime example of the fact that even a well-known professional soccer player does not have to lose the touch with his fans. Frings was and is not to make a name for himself with populist demands in talk shows.
Now he says: „It can’t be in the same way. Football in Germany is becoming increasingly alienated from its fans. It’s time for everyone involved to sit down at one table and consider together how to counteract this development.“ Frings is a strong advocate of constructive dialogue between those responsible at the DFB and the fans – a demand that FC PlayFair! has been making ever since it was founded. Various solutions have already been presented as a basis for discussion – now, for the first time, Torsten Frings, a multiple national player, is calling for the goals of FC PlayFair! to be discusses and the club to be supported.
In addition to the „Situation Analysis Professional Football 2017″, a scientific study with almost 18,000 participating fans of all clubs in the first and second Bundesliga, FC PlayFair! has also submitted a proposal to UNESCO to declare football fan culture an intangible world culture heritage. Finally, the club made its public debut with a study on the subject of “ fan representatives on the supervisory board“ and with the fan app „UFFL“ (www.uffl.app). Torsten Frings: “ I support FC PlayFair! because its committed to the interests of the fans and because it has substantiated the danger of alienation of football from its base with scientific facts. Many other fan projects also take a constructive apptoach to this issue – they all need to be supported to the best of they ability. By the way, the DFB has already shown with the commitment of Jürgen Klinsmann and Jogi Löw that it is capable of critical analysis and the right reaction to it. Now it’s time to get it right again.
About FC PlayFair!
The „FC PlayFair! Verein für Integrität im Profifußball e.V.“ was foulten in January 2017 by family entrepreneur Claus Vogt and sports economist Prof. Dr. André Bühler in order to identify the most urgent problems and possible solutions in view of the ever increasing commercialization of professional football in Germany and elsewhere. The members of FC PlayFair! love football and are followers of the most diverse clubs. They sit in the box and stand in the curve. FC PlayFair! works in a strictly super-union way. Further information can be found at www.fcplayfair.org.
